


The House of Forbidden Things

by BardicRaven



Category: Glamourist Histories Series - Mary Robinette Kowal
Genre: Education, F/F, Forbidden Love, Illnesses, M/M, Magic, Magical Realism, Miracles, Safe Haven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 11:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21897469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardicRaven/pseuds/BardicRaven
Summary: When your lord orders you into the library, you go.
Relationships: Original Female Character(s)/Original Female Character(s), Original Male Chacter(s)/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	1. A Rebellious Voice Will Not Be Silenced

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DragonBandit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonBandit/gifts).

“Anne? Is that you?”

The tall, sturdy, somewhat plain woman stopped in the hall, took a moment, took a breath, before she trusted herself to answer.

“Yes, Mirriam, it’s me.”

“Home so soon?” Concern along with the puzzlement.

Another breath before she could trust herself to speak. “I was dismissed early today.”

A short round woman with a mop of golden-brown curls emerged from one of the rooms down the hall, hurrying down to her before enveloping her in a sisterly hug and a kiss that was anything but sisterly.

When she came up for air, Mirriam looked at Anne and not-quite-sighed. “Again?”

A stiff nod. “One of the little darlings needed reminding of her place in this world. Her darling Mama didn’t take it well.”

“They usually don’t,” Mirriam said dryly.

“It needed to be said,” Anne said unrepentantly, hanging her wraps before going into the parlor to sit heavily into one of the comfortable, if worn, sofas. Mirriam followed her, sitting next to Anne, patting her knee.

Anne stared sightlessly around at the folds of glamour that kept the parlor from looking shabbier than it did. All the residents of the Home for Independent Glamourists contributed to it, both in the parlor and the rest of the house. They received a stipend from a member of the nobility, but it had a long way to stretch, and it never seemed to stretch quite far enough.

“Oh, Anne,” Mirriam said quietly. “Why do you have to fight so?”

Anne came back to herself, looked sharply at Mirriam. “You know why,” she said shortly before turning away again.

“I know,” Mirriam said quietly. “So we can be together. Still.”

Anne said nothing more, but a hand crept out and covered Mirriam’s where it still lay on her knee, gripping it tightly.

Mirriam squeezed back, understanding, acceptance, forgiveness, then let go. “Do you think they will have you back?”

Anne shook herself, came back to the here and now to say. “I don’t know. I think so. She only said ‘you are dismissed for today.’ I think she’d’ve stopped after ‘dismissed’ if she meant forever.”

“Let’s hope. Jobs in glamour aren’t always easy to come by.” Anne looked at her lover again, to see if there was any hint of condemnation behind the words, but saw nothing but love and worry.

“Come away,” she said, drawing Mirriam up after her. “Let’s go upstairs and make love. I’ll take you to your favorite place.”

“The seashore?” Mirriam asked eagerly.

“Among others.” Anne grinned wickedly, already reaching for the folds as they both quickened their steps.

* * *


	2. The Earl & the Footman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When your lord orders you into the library, you go.

“James,” the Earl of Stantonbury said. “a word, if you please.”

“Of course, my lord,” the footman replied, following the Earl into the richly-appointed library. Once they were there, the Earl took a seat in one of the red-leather upholstered chairs and gestured for James to take another.

Bemused and a little concerned, James did so, then awaited his fate.

“I’m not going to eat you,” the earl said a little impatiently. “Or dismiss you, so you can relax.”

James relaxed fractionally, wondering again why he’d been called in here.

He did not expect what he heard next.

“I’ve been seeing the way you look at me,” the earl began.

James leaped to his feet, stammering apologies, pleas, he wasn’t entirely sure what, until the earl cut him off with a gesture, and then pointed back to the chair he’d left so hastily. Reddening, he sat back down.

“As I said,” the earl continued patiently. “I’ve seen the way you look at me, and", he held up a hand to forestall any additional apologies, “I return your favor in full measure.”

It took James a moment to catch up with what his ears had heard. Then, “My lord?” Wondering if it were a trick, his heart and his groin both hoping desperately it was not.

“I said, I return your favor in full measure.” James risked a quick look down and from the state of his lord’s trousers, the prominent lump creasing the otherwise perfect lines, it would seem his words were true. Still, it was a risk. Dare he take it? A lord, they could get away with much, but a commoner such as himself had little recourse if charged with the crime of sodomy.

As if reading his thoughts, the earl replied, “I will protect you. And I can hide us within the folds of glamour. No one need ever know.” The earl rose gracefully and went to James, holding out his hands. James accepted, rising to find himself in a crushing embrace, the recipient of deep kisses he eagerly returned.

Dimly, he noticed the earl make a few gestures behind him and he felt the world change, presumably the result of the promised glamour. At the moment, he was too lost in lust to care, tho’ he distantly realized that later he’d be grateful indeed.

And he was, as the pleasure given and received left neither of them quiet, tho’ both most immensely pleased. Later too, as his lord was fond of pulling him aside, pulling quick folds of glamour around them, then kissing him nearly senseless. Sometimes that led to more, right there in the hallway. Despite himself, James found the danger only heightened the pleasure. At least there in the house, where his lord held command.

The day he asked James to put on the clothes of a fine gentleman and accompany him out, that was another day entirely. But he obeyed, however nervously, and soon found himself at the Home for Independent Glamourists, heart pounding at the fear that they might be discovered.

“My lord?” James asked “Why are we here?”

“I sponsor the house,” he said. “I can have the use of a spare room once in a while.”

He was welcomed into the house straightway. “The usual, my lord?”The butler asked, taking his hat & coat before turning to James and doing the same.

“Later, Benton,” the earl said. “For now, a room, if you please.”

“Done.” And with that, one of the best afternoons in James’ life began. His lord decorated the plain room in the finest glamour, then took him to heights of pleasure he’d not thought possible. When he finally protested that he could not possibly rise to the occasion one more time, his lord smiled wickedly and said, “Remember this afternoon, the next time I catch you in the hall.”

He would. Then and every other moment for the rest of his life. He didn’t know how it could get any better, tho’ of course it did.

After all, practice makes better, and they got a lot of practice indeed.

* * *


	3. Lessons Passed to a New Generation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pass on what you know to save lives.

Another day, another set of giggling girls to try and teach the rules of glamour to, the ways to fold, hold, and tie off. The two today a set of friends as alike as twins, tho’ completely unrelated. Anne sighed, mentally steeling herself against their sheer bubbly girlishness. They weren’t bad amateur glamourists, tho’ they tended to get lost in each other more than they got lost in her words.

Still, she’d been hired to teach them and teach them she would.

In the middle of the lesson, she suddenly had the feeling that the room had changed. Dismissing all the folds of glamour, the two studious girls she'd been looking at disappeared as well, to be replaced by the sight of the two girls snogging for all they were worth, hands up the other’s rucked-up skirt.

“Girls!” Anne snapped and the two broke apart, faces falling into horrified realization as they realized they had been caught out.

“Oh, please, Miss Anne, please don’t tell!” came as one from two terrified throats.

She let them squirm for a while before replying. “I won’t. But only because I understand. However, any repeat of this behavior and I will not hold my silence. Understood?”

“Yes, Miss Anne,” came the chorus of relieved voices.

“Now,” she said more gently. “Let me show you better ways of hiding yourselves. Make the folds like this and it won't be so obvious what you've done.”

And the lesson went on, in a different direction than it had begun, and with considerably more attention paid to it by all concerned. What had begun as a woman’s pastime, a gentlewoman’s delicate flower, had become a matter of life & death, and much more interesting for all.

* * *


	4. On the Seventh Day Ye Shall Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you can't go to the church, you can make the church come to you.

Mr Bendesham was dying, there was no doubt of that. What had begun as a passing chill had grown, and even the doctor sent for and paid out of precious house funds couldn’t do anything to stop it.

Mirriam had just sent his husband away for some food and some rest. “It will be all right,” she’d said, “and I’ll send for you if there’s any change.” He’d clearly not wanted to go, but equally as clearly, his body demanded, and Mirriam finally shut the door behind him, then went back to the bedside.

She sat in the chair the other man had vacated, reaching for Mr Bendesham’s hand, stroking it since she could think of no other way to bring the man peace.

Suddenly, he woke. “Take me t’church,” he demanded. “It’s Sabbath and I need to get my soul right for Heaven.”

“You’re ill,” Mirriam began. She got no further, as Mr Bendesham sat up by sheer will, looked her full in the face and said “Take. Me. T’chuch.” before falling back against the sheets, spent.

Mirriam released his hand and sat back, shaken. What was she to do? Actually obeying him was out of the question. Even in the unlikely event they could find a hack willing to take them with such clear signs of illness, Mirriam was pretty sure that Mr Bendesham wouldn't make it through the journey there and back again.

The next thought seemed an equal mix of obvious and impossible. Well, if we can’t take Mr Bendesham to church, we’ll just have to bring the church to Mr Bendesham.

And yet… she’d been taught that to work glamour on the Sabbath was sin at best, a recipe for total disaster at worst.

And yet… how could she deny this man what could so easily turn out to be his last request?

She braced herself and reached for the first fold. Nothing happened, or rather, nothing untoward. The fold behaved as it would have any other day, and that gave her confidence. She tied the first fold off and reached for another.

Fold by fold, the room shifted from the somewhat threadbare room of a resident of the Home for Independent Glamourists to a fair imitation of the local church.

When she was done, she roused herself enough to go out ot the hall and ask for Mr Greene to be sent for. What religion he actually practiced, she was less than sure, but she knew him to be a spiritual man, who regularly blessed this House in a way that seemed to work, and she hoped that he could play the role of priest in this time of need.

When he arrived, in robes that could be seen as priestly in a pinch, Mirriam roused Mr Bendesham. “You’re here,” she told him, forgiving herself for the lie, telling herself it was in a good cause.

“Gi’me blessing, father,” he mumbled. Mr Greene did as he asked, and Mirriam could feel the peace stirring through the room herself.

When he was done, Mr Bendesham sank back, thankfully not having thought about how strange it was that his bed was mysteriously transported to the local church, and gone to a much more peaceful sleep than he’d had.

“It’s up to God, now,” Mr Green said as he took his leave.

Mirriam felt that it was much more likely than it had been that God would say ‘yes’ to Mr Bendesham living through this. She picked up his hand again with a much more peaceful heart and settled in to wait.

* * *

She’d been replaced with Mr Bendesham’s husband again, tho’ she stayed, why she couldn't have said except that she admitted she was curious as to how things would go. She left the folds of glamour up, in case they were doing some good, and settled back to drowse.

“Charles?!?” she heard some indeterminate time later.

“John?” a tired yet undeniably whole voice answered.

Mirriam woke the rest of the way to find a miracle. She’d not put it in any other words, it was a miracle. Mr Bendesham was sitting up in bed, supported by the arms of his husband, weak and yet definitely whole.

Mirriam smiled, relieved, happy, and also triumphant. A new rule of glamour had been discovered and an old one could be set aside.

Far from being a recipe for disaster, at least some glamour worked on the Sabbath could lead to a miracle.

She sent a silent ‘thank you!’ up to whoever might be listening in Heaven and rose quietly to leave the two men to their joyful reunion.

Tonight, at least, there would be no grief here in the House.

* * *


	5. Glamour from the Other Side of the Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just because you pass from this world, that doesn't mean you stop being a glamourist.

As Mirriam left the room, if she’d looked back, she might have seen a wisp of energy in a corner of the room hiding itself among the pews of the glamoured sanctuary.

In life, this wisp had been the spirit belonging to a member of the House known for helping out with spiritual matters that could not be brought to the church outside – marriages especially. While they held no legal validity outside these walls, still, inside these walls the marriage ceremonies had brought a measure of peace and comfort to those who had participated.

The wisp had been pleased to note that the custom had survived them, continuing on to the present day. What that day WAS, they were a little fuzzy about – time no longer had a great deal of meaning to those on this side of the Wall between the living and the dead – but they did know that it was a long time after they had passed from the living.

They were also glad that they had been able to help. In life, they had held some small measure of healing ability, the ability to weave folds that helped the sick in some way that led to their becoming better. They weren’t sure if this would translate now, but did feel that trying was far better than not.

Over the years, they’d done their best, thought that they had been able to help, but nothing so downright miraculous as this. Not that they took credit for Mr Bendesham’s healing. Oh, no. That properly belonged those in Heaven. But they’d not seen anything like this until today, no matter what they’d been able to do.

They pulled another fold of glamour out of the ether, fashioned it into a vase of healing flowers which they placed on the bedside table, then drifted to and through the wall, leaving the two lovers in peace, sleeping together in a way they'd feared might not happen again.

Truly, a wondrous day here in the House. A day definitely worth staying for.

* * *


End file.
